Argrave Redwyne
Lord Argrave is the Lord of House Redwyne and the current ruler of the Arbor. Biography Lord Argrave Redwyne was born to Lord Gyles Redwyne and Lady Elyn Hightower in the three hundred and forty third year after the Conquest. Argrave's world from a young age was simply the Arbor, which ships from strange and unknowable lands visited as though they simply sprang fully-formed from the horizon. When the Hand's War broke out, his father took him as a page and went to war. He had two brothers by this point, both of whom were left behind. Lord Gyles was ever a careful man. The war showed young Argrave that the world was enormous, but the Arbor was special. There was a king he met only briefly, a king who put a strange golden necklace on his father's neck, and an endless parade of noblemen that showed his father -- and him -- respect. Argrave's studies had not yet granted him complete mastery over the devices and sigils of Westeros, but he recognized a number of them -- the high tower of the helpfully-named Hightower, the gold rose of Tyrell, the oak tree of Oakheart. Argrave accompanied his father on the campaign that would ultimately devastate the Dornish fleet. Though the loyalists had triumphed, the war soured Argrave's taste for fighting and waging wars. The long periods of boredom, the sickness, the mix of frantic confusion and crippling panic were not to Argrave's taste. When his father sailed home triumphant, Argrave promised himself he would let other men do the fighting for him. The next decade was serene and quiet by comparison. Lord Gyles was off in King's Landing and had left the administration of the Arbor to Argrave. Here Argrave learned the wine trade, from vine to decanter, and studied the shipping routes and prevailing winds. Traditionally, the Redwyne ships and their captains would sail at staggered intervals and hope to sneak past any ne'er-do-wells by simply being too small a group to reliably spot. Argrave changed this, at least for ships bound past the Stepstones, and implemented a convoy system. With the assistance of the Archmaester of Meteorology, he plotted out the ideal time to send out scores of trading ships at once. They would call upon each port on their route in turn, offloading wine and purchasing local products before sailing on to the next city. Whatever was in their holds by the time they arrived in Oldtown for their last stop abroad would be offloaded there -- wine, silks, lace, and anything else the Free Cities might have sold except slaves. The captains that tried to deal in slaves, even within the Free Cities alone, inevitably found themselves captaining a ship on a one-way trip to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Argrave's convoys also served an added purpose: they made the ships tough targets for all but the most audacious and dangerous pirates. A pirate might handle a ship or two, but twenty? That was a lot of arrows to dodge, a lot of risk to incur. There were often easier targets. There were pirates that did trouble the convoys, of course, but bounties usually dealt with those well enough. Argrave's reforms to the family's trade interests resulted in ever-growing profits, earning him recognition as something of a trade magnate and expert on the subject of profit. His father negotiated a marriage alliance with House Oakheart, giving him strong ties to a second House. The second decade of his father's tenure as Hand saw Argrave assume additional responsibilities for House Redwyne's affairs as Lord Gyles campaigned for ending the threat of the Ironmen for good. Argrave was largely oblivious to this effort on the part of his father, but contempt of the Ironmen and hatred for their vile practices and even more vile god was so ingrained into the fabric of the Reachmen that Argrave hardly batted an eye when orders came from King's Landing to make ready for Lord Chester and the Royal Fleet. Argrave, with three children of his own now, was all too happy to let his northern neighbor and friend sail off to war at the head of the Reach armada. He accompanied aboard the Redwyne flagship, as befitting his stature, but kept well enough away from the fighting. The war proved brutal but blessedly short; the Ironmen were beaten, prostrate before the Iron Throne. And then the king betrayed them. It had been a holy war, but the king let them keep their evil god. It had been a war to end the threat of reaving, but the king allowed them to reave in Essos -- in the same places Argrave's own convoys sailed and traded. It had been a war to end slavery, but thralldom was permitted. Any of these insults alone might have been smoothed over by the knowledge that the Hand had not given these concessions lightly, but the king, in his infinite wisdom, had decided to replace Lord Gyles. Lord Gyles returned home in disgrace. He had served the king loyally and faithfully for two decades, only to be simply thrown away when the king decided he was too practical in arguing for the end of the Ironmen. Lord Gyles returned without purpose or drive left and would die within a few years. He was replaced with a Baelish and, like Lord Gyles' predecessor, Lord Brynden's tenure would end not in dismissal but in civil war. A year later, Argrave's own wife would pass from a sickness. Argrave, now Lord of the Arbor in name as well as practice, had little and less interest of fighting on behalf of the king. The Arbor sat the war out, fortifying her shores and building warships. The Ironborn made a conspicuous justification -- as well as the treason of House Hightower. It was flimsy, perhaps, but there were enough reports of piracy and raids to justify it. And Argrave couldn't quite bring himself to support the rebels, or even his kin in Oldtown. He would kick himself later for not doing so. He might have secured the city for House Redwyne if he had. Instead, with Hightower exiled or dead, the city was taken by the Tyrells for their own purposes. In the years after the war, Argrave negotiated a series of trade deals with Essos, securing for the Arbor resources from far afield. These deals would prove short-lived, but they brought gold and prosperity to the island before the next war erupted. Argrave then tried to spend his time bargaining on more practical matters, like marriage alliances. His eldest married a Grimm, his second son married a Crane, his eldest daughter married a Dayne. The tendrils of House Redwyne's marriage alliances spread out, intertwining the House's interests with her neighbors. When war erupted between Dorne and the Triarchy, Argrave sought other trade partners. He sailed south and east to Lotus Port. There he negotiated another trade deal, this one he hoped rather more immune to the petty wars that seemed to plague Westeros, and struck up a partnership with Xanda Mo. Xanda ran a trade interest in hardwoods. Argrave attempted to talk his way into a trade in goldenheart, but he found himself as unsuccessful as any other visitor to those tropical shores. Argrave decided to try charm. He wined and dined the Summer Islander, learned Islander poetry, and plied her with gifts. One thing led to another and Argrave found himself the father of a bastard. He considered bringing Xanda back to the Arbor, but he suspected that would go over about as well as bringing an Ironborn woman home would go. They named the child Talbert, since Tal was at least an Islander name and he could go by that just as easily, and on a trip back to Port Lotus several years later he formally acknowledged the boy. He and Xanda continued an on-again, off-again relationship, each period of separation characterized by a renewed focus on their trade deals. Xanda made her first visit to the Arbor three years after the war over the Stepstones was ended. Argrave was in the Summer Islands when he received news of summons to the capital. He set sail promptly, holds full of exotic trading goods, and wondered what was of such pressing importance. The toll he paid on the way to King's Landing reminded him of the need to orchestrate some sort of response to the Triarchy's tyranny in the Stepstones -- for House Redwyne, not for Westeros. Maybe old Edmund was finally ready to die and plunge the realm into civil war again. House Redwyne would ride that out, too. Timeline * 343: Born to Lord Gyles Redwyne and Lady Elyn Hightower * 350: Argrave serves as page to Lord Gyles Redwyne in the Hand's War * 361: Marriage of Argrave Redwyne and Delena Oakheart * 362: Mathias Redwyne is born * 367: Gareth Redwyne is born * 369: Rohanne Redwyne is born * 370: Lord Gyles Redwyne, Hand of the King, is dismissed and sent home * 372: Rohanne Redwyne is born * 373: Lord Gyles Redwyne dies of natural causes * 374: Lady Delena Oakheart dies of sickness * 378: Lady Elyn Hightower dies of natural causes * 380: Mathias Redwyne is married to Maris Grimm * 381: House Redwyne enacts a policy of armed abstinence in Brynden's Rebellion * 383: Argrave fathers a bastard with Xanda Mo in the Summer Islands * 385: Gareth Redwyne is married to Alys Crane * 387: Rohanne Redwyne is married to Alaric Dayne Family Tree Supporting Characters * Ser Gareth Redwyne, Captain of the Bitter Vine - Ship Captain * Ser Robert Redwyne, Captain of the Notes of Steel - Ship Captain * Ser Robert Redwyn, Household Knight - General * Xanda Mo, Trade Partner - Navigator * Emma Costayne, Niece - Medic Category:House Redwyne Category:Reachman